



4^ 




CASH AND CHARACTER: 



A LECTURE ON HIGH LIFE. 



BY WILLIAM T. COGGESHALL. 

AUTHOR OF " EASY WARREX AND HIS COTEMPORARIES/ 
" OAKSHAW ," ETC. 



That the Summer of Pride should have its Fall 
Is quite according to Nature. — John G. Saxe. 



fos~t< 



CINCINNATI: 
MOOEE, WILSTACH, KEYS, & CO., 

25 WEST FOURTH STREET. 
1855. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, 

By WILLIAM T. COGGESHALL, 
In the Clerk's Office for the Southern District of Ohio. 



•H^ 



DEDICATORY LETTER. 



To Orville J. Victor, 

You, my friend, will not dispute with 
me that a little, modest book has quite as good a 
right to Preface and Dedication as a big, pretending 
book. 

I have no Preface to indite, and this ean hardly be 
called a Dedication ; but if an inscription were placed 
on this page, it should be to you, who first gave me 
satisfactory encouragement to assume the responsi- 
bility of a Lecturer before Literary Societies. I have 
an object in connecting your name with this, my first 
Lecture (published at the request of Societies to 
which it was spoken), which the usual form of a 
Dedication would not express. That object is, to 
acknowledge you — from observation not narrow— as 
the most active Editor in Ohio, for the maintenance 

° One of the Editors of the " Sandusky Kegister." 



iv Dedicatory Letter. 

of a correct Lecture System ; one calculated, not only 
to interest and improve the people, but to afford recog- 
nition and reward to talent and learning at home. 

The propriety of this acknowledgment will not be 
questioned by those who know you best, because they 
will agree with me, that whatever of good character 
this Discourse pleads for, your Editorial career 
supports, and your private life exemplifies. 
Eespectfully, 

W. T. C. 
Cincinnati, August, 1855. 



CASH AND CHARACTER. 



The moral and political relations of a com- 
munity depend mainly upon its social charac- 
teristics: not merely its good fellowship, hut 
the stahility of principle, the support of worth 
acknowledged in its homes, and reflected there- 
from. 

A just index to the reliahle tone of any com- 
munity may always be found in the fact whether 
its standard of individual value is Cash, or 
Character. 

The common words, Money, and Morals, em- 
body what is dearest to men, and most import- 
ant to society. 

There exists an impression, if not a conviction, 
that money has not a very near relationship to 



6 Cash and Character: 

morals : but that morals ought to have a near 
relationship to money, is a doctrine universally 
recognised. 

"We are taught, when we are young, that the 
love of money is the root of all evil ; and as we 
go forward in the journey of life, we see that 
morals form the basis of true prosperity. We 
may know men to have money, but if they have 
not morals, as well as money, we neither trust 
nor respect them, farther than the law and 
business interest demand. Some deference, to be 
sure, is won for men by money, but it is selfish 
deference. It is toward what the man has, not 
toward what the man is. The honor and con- 
sideration money buys, are as unsubstantial, as 
unreal, as the imaginary lakes and rivers, which, 
remotely flowing, appear on misty mornings 
along the eastern horizon. The deference morals 
win, is positive ; without change or shadow of 
turning : it belongs to the man as distinctly, as 
definitely, as his name. 

A poet said, " 0, the rarity of Christian 
charity, under the sun." We may deplore the 
undue passion for profit in the business world, 
and lament the absence of morals, but the evil 



A Lecture on High Life. 7 

will not be corrected in any community, until a 
large majority of the business men bring borne 
to tbemselves tbe question, whether in their 
transactions money is subservient to morals, or 
morals to money. 

Men of observation get their choicest illustra- 
tions of any theme from bountiful nature, which 
with lavish hand prepares suggestive as well as 
beautiful pictures. 

I may be excused for employing from my 
own observation, a suggestion which relates to 
an important consideration of morals. 

On a bright autumn day, I crossed a field 
where the sunlight fell broadly upon young 
wheat, green in the freshness of thrifty growth. 
I observed that a shining network, with multi- 
plied connections, was broken by my footsteps. 
Stooping down, with my face toward the sun, I 
saw that from every spear of wheat, a silver 
thread was drawn, the whole forming a glitter- 
ing net that overspread the ground. When I 
had made my way out from among the brittle 
meshes, gathered in my path, I looked back, but 
except within a short distance from where I 
stood, was unable to trace my footsteps, by any 



8 Cash and Character: 

dismembering of the tiny threads among which 
they had been planted. It had been a tedious 
task to gather singly those little threads, invisi- 
ble as they were, except, when, covered with 
dampness, the sunlight burnished them. 

Had the labor of protecting that young wheat 
from the impediments to its growth such threads 
afforded, been intrusted to a practical farmer, 
first, he would have endeavored to ascertain the 
character and habits of the insect, which spun 
the shining network ; then he would have sum- 
moned his keenest wit, and exercised his shrewd- 
est skill in lively efforts to keep that insect 
from the field. 

Society may be likened to that field. Xot 
thicker among the young wheat were those bur- 
nished threads, than are the delusive snares set 
every where for those, who, escaping from the 
checks and counsels of Home, are conducted into 
the paths where good fellowship is encouraged 
by wrong doing. 

Day after day, and night after night, for 
many years, earnest, self-sacrificing workers 
have diligently labored to gather up these 
threads, finding them, where they could, by the 



A Lecture on High Life. 9 

light of truth ; but no man, however well 
acquainted with the walks these workers have 
taken, can trace their foot-prints remotely by 
any evidence of permanent demolition among 
the snares they undertook to destroy. As soon as 
one was taken away another was set in its place. 

The halting steps, stumblings and fallings 
they occasion, produce permanent injury to 
health, baneful change of character — sturdy 
obstruction to the progress of Christianity — dis- 
tressful bereavement of families — alarming 
increase of poverty — shocking accumulation of 
crime — enlargement of governmental expendi- 
tures, accruing from crime and pauperism, and 
consequent addition to national, state, county, 
township, and corporation taxes : — yet what 
community is able to take the practical farmer 
for an exemplar. We all know how the snares 
are set, and why — by whom, and when, and 
where — but in no town or city, north or south, 
is there community of virtue compact enough to 
shut out from its circles, high or low, the snare- 
setter whom the law recognises as an enemy to 
public morals — as chief among the business sin- 
ners who sacrifice Morals to Monev. 



10 Cash and Character: 

Suppose every Home were a school, where 
self-respect and moral courage were affection- 
ately, but firmly and successfully taught, the 
youths of our land would be so hedged about 
that they could no more imbibe as a beverage 
what will intoxicate, than an honest boy can 
rob his father. Those who are about to jostle 
with the world, in all the varied forms of busi- 
ness life, would be so committed, that public 
sentiment would not tolerate even genteel 
tippling. 

Did correct views thoroughly penetrate the 
domestic relations of life, there would be no 
need of prohibitory liquor laws ; distilleries, as 
relics of a darker age, would crumble ; grass 
would grow in the walks about county poor- 
houses, and over the scornful abodes of the 
criminal, ivy would creep. 

The intelligent father is not anxious that his 
children shall obey petty commands through 
fear, but that they shall receive such lessons of 
law as will teach them to shun error, on the 
same principle that a nice musician avoids dis- 
cord — because it is painful to him. 

Mothers do not often enough forcibly present 



A Lecture on High Life. 11 

the moral requisitions for principle, rather than 
policy, as a rule of action. Here I suggest dis- 
tinctly, what I conceive to he the means neces- 
ary to render money subservient to morals — to 
secure practical, executive recognition, for com- 
munities, as well as individuals, of the ancient 
adage, that " honesty is the "best policy ; " not 
the best in a selfish point of view, only, but the 
best because it is honor and duty. 

If I am not extravagant in my views of what 
may be done to promote morals through one 
branch of social reform, I may make an un- 
limited claim for home education as the instru- 
ment by which, in the business world, morals, 
as well as money, may be rendered an element 
of commerce. 

The virtue or the vice of individuals gives 
tone to a community. Public violation of known 
principles of justice, or disregard of moral obli- 
quity by any community to-day, argues unfaith- 
ful discharge of obligations in the homes of 
yesterday. If individuals, established in virtue 
at home, properly represent their homes in busi- 
ness, in politics, in the social circle, no crime 
of magnitude can be committed among them ; 



12 ii and Character: 

no designing speculator, no trickster of a politi- 
cian dare undertake to sway or lead their 
community. 

Fathers and mothers give tone to homes. 
The mother who gads after fashion, the father 
who is, hody and soul, absorbed in business, can 
not expect uprightness in their children. The 
citizen of wealth, who takes no pains to charm 
his boys at home, must not be disappointed if 
they love the charms of circles that gather in 
darkness and in secret, and learn to be shiftless, 
vicious spendthrifts ; the countryman, greedy 
for work and miserly of leisure, who denies his 
children liberal opportunities for mental and 
moral culture, under a miserly pretense that 
he is " laying something up for them against 
a rainy day," need only calculate that his boys 
will be easy-going drones, for whom intelligent 
men will make laws, and on whom active men 
will impose taxes ; and such they must become 
unless, perchance, they possess original genius — 
undaunted, far-reaching. 

Need of home attention, of home education, 
characterises most of the rascality which society 
is obliged to punish severely ; want of home 



A Lecture on High Life. 13 

honesty stands firmly as a monitor in the tab- 
leaux of deception and indiscretion furnished 
the world in the dramas that belong to the 
business failures that oppress and impoverish. 

These severe declarations I could substantiate 
by many facts which prison statistics have brought 
to light, and by many illustrations that business 
assignments have afforded ; but I will appeal to 
real life, for a single exponent of domestic 
knavery. 

Robert Schuyler, of New York, was president 
of various railroad companies, and financial 
agent of others, and had unlimited control of 
funds. He played a desperate game. It did 
not win. He coveted money and despised morals, 
and he was introduced to infamous notoriety, as 
a defaulter for two and a half millions of dollars. 
An immense sum. What did Mr. Robert Schuy- 
ler do with it ? The question is a vain one. 
But Mr. Schuyler had a social, as well as a 
financial life, and if we can not clearly solve 
the mystery which involves his prodigal waste- 
fulness of other men's money, we are given the 
particulars of a domestic romance which throws 
some light upon it. Mr. Schuyler maintained 



14 Cash and Character. : 

two households. At one he was a benedict, at 
the other a bachelor. The gay and careless 
visitors at the bachelor mansion had no sus- 
picion that their liberal host was the father of 
a family ; and the inmates of that family had 
never a doubt but that its lord was what he 
seemed, and only that. At home he was Mr. 
Spicer ; at his bachelor quarters, and in the 
business world, he was Mr. Schuyler. For 
nearly a quarter of a century was Eobert 
Schuyler both a benedict and a bachelor, in 
New York city ; and both characters were 
maintained with such shrewd secrecy that his 
domestic knavery was not divulged, on one side, 
until upon the eve of a daughter's marriage, 
and upon the other side, was not exposed until a 
great financial fraud induced investigations from 
which no secrets were secure. His brother, a 
partner in business, was then first informed 
that he had promising nephews and nieces. 

It is not strange that a man who could play 
so well a double part in domestic life, should 
play a double part, on a grand scale, in business 
life. He was intact a deceiver. Had not for- 
tune so favored him that he could swindle in 



A Lecture on High Life. 15 

princely style, he had been a petty scoundrel, 
well acquainted with city prisons, and the lowest 
purlieus of city vice. 

Honesty is a principle ; it is substance, not 
shadow. The man who is dishonest at home, 
can not be honest abroad. If he will cheat his 
wife and children, he must cheat his business 
associates. Home confidence is an anchor of 
safety, and the man who does not hold fast by 
it, is adrift in an ocean of uncertainty. His 
voyage of life may be honorable, but the chances 
are that he will make shipwreck of all that is 
dearest and sweetest among human blessings. 
Public prosperity, as well as private interest, 
has its safeguard in home, and in the sentiment 
which not only inculcates love and respect for, 
but requires support and protection of, home. 
It " pays " quite as well for society, east or west, 
to give attention to the improvement of families, 
as to the improvement of rivers and harbors ; 
when government guaranties rights and prive- 
Leges which multiply and elevate homes in old 
States, it is quite as far-seeing as when it guar- 
antees " popular sovereignty," to multiply farms 
and towns in new Territories. It follows, then, 



1G Casii and Character: 

that men who have more pride in business than 
in home, whose most active affections are centered 
in the counting-house, rather than in the family 
circle — who have more anxious emotions about 
profit and loss, than about children's lessons, — 
may be financially wise, but socially and morally 
are culpably foolish. The head of a family has 
other duties than those material ones which 
pertain to food or raiment, plain or rich, extra- 
vagant or niggard. The prosperous men of our 
time, those who provide most richly and bounti- 
fully for the wardrobe and the larder, are those 
who know least of the higher necessities of their 
families, and administer least to their social 
instruction — the moral culture of their sons and 
daughters. 

Our age of steam is characterized not only 
by ' fast' enterprises which promote commerce, 
and render distant communities neighborly and 
sociable, but by ' fast' living — a stimulated go- 
aheadativeness in a domestic way, which grows 
on what it feeds, and feeding on extravagant 
tastes, and wasteful pleasures, requires bold 
speculation, financial intrigue, and frequent 
bankruptcy. Life is earnest in the extravagant 



A Lecture on High Life. 17 

family, but it is not real ; it is intensely specu- 
lative. The reality comes, when, in the com- 
mercial department of the daily newspaper, it is 
announced that " Day-book and Ledger" have 
failed. The "crash" that succeeds such a dis- 
closure, usually ultimates in wretchedness as 
bitter as the life which induced it was vain. 
That was a significant remark made by the City 
Missionary of Cincinnati, in a public address : 
He was acquainted with abodes of wretchedness 
— he had seen much of misery and human des- 
pair among all classes, but the bitterest distress, 
the most abject poverty, the lowest degradation 
he had ever found, was not among the grand- 
children of the poor, but, among the grand- 
children of the rich. 

In the fashionable circles of to-day, among 
American citizens who command the broadest 
privileges, there is contemptuous disregard of 
the effective arts — a disregard which allows 
many a young man to die a loafer or a gambler, 
who might have done himself and society good 
service as an artizan. And what is the fashion 
for which such sacrifices are made ? It is the 
reign of money over morals. It is a standard 



18 Cash and Character: 

of extravagance, Bet up in the family of one 
singularly lucky man, which others, not so 
lucky, but quite as foolish, undertake to copy 
after, but " failing" in the undertaking, cheat 
their friends, and produce a financial crisis. It 
is written in the formation of our government, 
in the history of our legislative councils, in the 
construction of our railways, in the mechanical 
triumphs which enrich the husbandman, elevate 
the artizan, augment trade, and promote com- 
merce, that the honor and integrity, the power 
and growth, the worth and usefulness of our 
country, are not now, and never have been, 
maintained by fashionable people. There must 
be fundamental errors prevailing in that society 
of a republic, which, commanding all possible 
opportunities, with education, with wealth, with 
influence, does nothing but visit the toilet — 
through fatiguing evening entertainments, dance 
the giddy hours away — or through tedious morn- 
ing calls, traffic in small nonsense. 

There is an essential need of an infusion of 
an element of practical respect into those circles, 
which are composed of the sons and daughters 
of the rich men of our cities, and of those who, 



A Lecture on High Life. 19 

whether in city or country, vulgarly imitate 
their follies. 

Society suffers more bitterly from the misdi- 
rected kindness of overindulgent fathers and 
mothers, than the keenest moral reformer has 
yet heen able to depict. Too much tenderness 
may be quite as baneful as too much harshness ; 
or, rather, tenderness not guided by reason, may 
be followed by as evil results as indiscreet seve- 
rity. 

Among parents, there is a disposition (natural 
enough, but always to be considerately indulged) 
to protect their children against the trials and 
deprivations of their own early experience. 
When from the workers of one generation, 
spring those on whom the necessity of daily toil 
for daily bread is not imposed, it is painfully 
true, that fathers and mothers, considerate as 
they deem themselves, but really blind to their 
children's true interests, so strictly guard their 
" dear 7 ' boys and girls from the actual of inde- 
pendent life, that the youths are taught to be 
proudly effeminate. Here lies the secret which 
solves the mystery, why so few of the sons of 
the rich men of our day, are competent to fill, 



90 Cash and Ciiaracteii: 

or even have ambition for, the high plac 

business, in mechanics, . in art, in litera- 

ture, through which their fathers won wealth 

or renown. The men of mark in America — the 
useful men of America, are self-reliant, Self- 
reliance, in the true and hopeful sense, is not 
taught in the families which give tone t<> high 
life. Knowing the absence of this potent lesson, 
the philosophical observer sees the influences 
which support the social cancer, now eating 
toward the heart of our national prosperity. 
Because independence, politically, is a gift to us, 
we need not surrender ourselves to social thral- 
dom, which, dividing our people into two el; 
creates bitter antagonism and marshals preju- 
dice against prejudice in absorbing contest. 
The ambition of our social life, has not been 
improvement, so much as it has been pride, after 
a false standard. Controlled by the love of 
acquisition, fathers have no time — absorbed in 
the follies and pleasures of high life, mothers 
have no patience to educate, to lead, to encour- 
age their children. The bringing up of the 
men and women who are to guide the " ship of 
State/' is let out at so much per job. and very 



A Lecture on High Life. 21 

little do the employers know about the manner 
in which the poorly paid contractors execute 
their character-making tasks. The arch deceiver, 
the bold financier, the man of grand entertain- 
ments, of stocks, and clubs, whose duplicity at 
home and in business I have depicted, is but a 
stron 'j. ly marked representative of the hollow- 
hearted, vain-glorious, deceitful, selfish, passion- 
promoting, intellect-weakening life, called " fash- 
ionable," for participation in which men and 
women, who have been industrious and prosper- 
ous, of whom sensible things are to be expected, 
who can live honestly, and might be indepen- 
dent, cringe and bow, and humbly acknowledge 
patronizing favors which they should scornfully 
despise. 

We are a Christian people, but we have many 
idols, and very vulgar, and very ugly some of 
them are ; and a few of the ugliest and meanest 
are often set up in pretending households, and 
with meekest submission vain men and proud 
women bow down before them. 

We are a great people. We boast of our 
greatness with national pride, and the boast is 
no where sneered at ; but while we enjoy great 



22 I -u and Character: 

blessings, and congratulate our 
privileges, we encourage great wrongs, Politi- 
cally ami socially, we are excessively sensitive. 
Wc are loth to acknowledge to others the sins 
we ourselves see. When sharp or jealous men 
outside ofour confederacy, point out scars upon the 
face of our body politic, we have an irresistible 
impulse to avert our eyes ; or, if we acknowl- 
edge any disfiguring works, they are North 
when we are South, or South when we are North. 
When a keen observer, who is not in our M 
set," exposes the follies and caprices of our cir- 
cle, we do not at once enlist our energies in a 
reform, but we at once summon our wit for a 
retort, and its severity will correspond to the 
justness of the expose which disturbed our self- 
satisfied repose. 

We may promenade narrow streets all our 
lives, and yet have no idea of the picture of the 
city in which we live. One glance from the 
summit of a hill, would show us what no specu- 
lations can teach, what no calculations can arrive 
at. So observation, stretching out from the af- 
fections of home, may afford us lessons of lite, 
about which we had else been ignorant; but 



A Lecture on High Life. 23 

such observation will avail us nought, unless we 
apply the lessons learned to ourselves, as well 
as to our neighbors. " Distance lends enchant- 
ment to the view," wrote the poet. The moral- 
ist may add : it sometimes gives great wrongs a 
bold relief. 

About Jerusalem, the Holy City, there is a 
sorrowful picture. The picture of the lepers 
propagating among themselves a terrible curse. 
To the stranger this picture is revolting — his 
heart sickens on beholding it. The inhabitants 
of the Holy City look upon it without active 
emotion — they put forth no efforts to remove it. 

Were the Yankees to occupy Jerusalem, per- 
haps their first council for reform would provide 
for the removal of the lepers from under the 
walls of the Holy City. 

Near Jerusalem a tribe of wandering Arabs 
pitch their tents. They are a peculiar people. 
Neither they nor their forefathers, unto the 
remotest generation, had any practical know- 
ledge of the charms or the wrongs of the vice 
sociability sustains among civilized people. Not 
one of them can speak from experience of the 
fascinations of a social glass. When they would 



24 Cash and Ciiauactlk : 

drown care, if ever can' penetrates their vb 
life, it docs not occur to them that temporal 
oblivion may be secured by means of exhilerat- 
ing draughts. 

Were these dwellers in the desert, these 
unlettered Rechabitcs, to occupy enligl 
America, the spirit of their ancient righto and 
customs would lead them into an uncompromis- 
ing warfare against distilleries and dram shops. 
The utter abolition of the traffic in intoxicating 
beverages would be undertaken with as deep 
religious enthusiasm as ever animated a cru- 
sader in the Holy Land. 

Such extreme contrasts forcibly compel us 
to consider whether, from nations with simple 
wants and simple habits, among which stern, self- 
dependent customs control society, the favored of 
free America may not derive needful suggestions. 

A mathematical moralist has given a problem 
which is too often solved by sad experience. 
He declares that there are exceptions to every 
rule but the rule of three. As a man's income 
is to his expenditures, so will the amount of his 
debts be to his cash on hand, and consequent 
ability to meet them. 



A Lecture on High Life. 25 

Bad cyphering of this unexceptionable rule 
will always teach, as Saxe, the satirist, has said, 

" That wealth's a bubble that comes and goes, 
And that all proud flesh, wherever it grows, 
Is subject to irritation." 

Overreaching extravagance underlies business 
distress and financial wrong. Not only the fall 
of families, but the fall of nations, is written 
in luxury ; not only the restoration of families, 
but the restoration of peoples, is written in pru- 
dent retrenchment. Monetary distress can not 
always be ascribed to free-trade nor tariffs ; to 
bad management abroad, nor a weak administra- 
tion at home ; to low water, nor short crops. It 
grows out of extravagance — extravagance which 
may be found in homes — which leads to in- 
considerate ventures among merchants — which 
actuates grasping brokers — which misleads calcu- 
lating manufacturers, and thoughtless laborers. 
When it is fashionable to be foolish, the fashion 
must change. It were unphilosophical to declaim 
against fashion in the abstract. It can no more 
easily be reached than the foot of the rainbow. 
"We want fashion, we will always have fashion, 
but we want intelligence, we want justice in it ; 



I 



AXii ( 



ratber ire want intelli^ei and justice ;„ 

wl, ;.' t " Fashion i- .,„]v n p| 

indicating what prevails- , W ord« 

are not wedded to meanings, indissoluHy, "for 
better or for worse." " Moral," ,,[ of 

Latin derivation, originally meaning manner, or 
custom, with a primary acceptation lying l„„. k 
ot that, importing self-will, caprice - Ktl, 
is the same word, precisely, as " morality," hut 
with a Greek origin implying custom, or usao*. 
Our employment of the phrase "morals," fa, 
sense of "right," sprang from the description 
by ancient writers of the virtue or worth that 
was m men, or in communities, as their MM 
ariness, their Morality. 

To do right, was understood, originally to 
mean what was ordered, or directed ; and so it 
is yet, hut the order must he just. What is 
customary maybe neither "moral " nor "rio-ht," 
in the proper modern sense, though it may be 
fadaonabk: When "fashion" embodies not 
only "ethics," in the Greek signification, but 
" right," in the American import, then, with all 
due respect to its gay and thoagktlete votaries 
we may pray that it shall endure forever • hut 



A Lecture on High Life. 27 

while it is weak, vicious, and slavish — when it 
is the enemy of health — the foe of morals — when 
it is for pride rather than character — for show 
rather than worth, we should mark in it the 
" error of our ways," and demand a change. 

Some " love of a "bonnet," some casket of dia- 
monds, some splendid equipage, or some mag- 
nificent mansion, may, now-a-days, enslave a 
wide circle. In that circle are many who keep 
up their style on credit, wasting other men's 
money, dehasing their own morals, while they 
deceive a host of working people. There is need 
of reform which shall establish common sense 
where pride rules. We want soldiers for a cru- 
sade against folly, whose rallying cry shall he, 
a Ee volution that will dethrone King Mammon, 
and in the place of his realm organize a Eepublic, 
of which Character shall he Chief Magistrate. 

We patronise too much, what is idle and fan- 
ciful ; or if we do not, we neglect too much the 
solid and the substantial. In literature and in 
art, what brings largest profits to the publisher 
or dealer? I answer, the sketchy and the 
trashy (if I may be allowed the use of such 



28 ii and Character: 

I speak not against the lively and pleasant. 
Amusement we require, American! 
amusement enough; that is, calm, seething, 
richly humorous enjoyment. Exciting fun, bois- 
terous hurrah, which has its animating principle 
in the stomach, not in the head, nor in the 
heart, surrounds us everywhere; and our pic- 
tures, and our books, and our lectures, and our 
concerts, and our parties, must partake of the 
intense, the melo-dramatic. the extravagant, or 
we vote them bores, and avoid them. This is 
the legitimate result of hot competition to make 
money regardless of morals. The relaxation 
which follows,' if relaxation ever does follow, can 
hardly be expected to be characterized by a 
quiet pursuit of what is pure and finished, when 
the trade or traffic which fatigued was for profit 
at the expense of principle. Everybody recog- 
nizes the necessity of teaching children the 
wrong involved in theft. The propriety of incul- 
cating the immorality of spending another 
man's money, will nowhere be disputed. In 
most families, lessons which convey warnings 
against swindling are recited; but suppose that 
while the mother is putting into her boys' hands 



A Lecture on High Life. 29 

such books as will teach them honor and integ- 
rity, Pa, who has no time to explain what they 
read, because the counting-house absorbs him, 
body and soul, is published as a bankrupt, and 
his assets will only pay fifty cents on the dollar 
(that I believe is the respectable per cent.), how 
deep into the minds of his sons will sink the 
the home -lessons which are given them. The 
wrong the speculating bankrupt commits, is not 
only against business and against society, but is 
also directly against his family. Better that 
children should grow up in rags, with the com- 
monest education even, than that they should be 
surrounded with luxury, and enjoy the richest 
privileges, with a consciousness that they were 
purchased with money, which was secured by 
mercantile trickery, financial treachery, or dex- 
terous dodging of legal points. 

In the fact that too many parents are dodging 
and fawning, or plotting and deceiving, when 
they should be developing the higher qualities 
of their own minds, and the minds of those whom 
God has given them for culture and control, the 
shrewd thinker may find sufficient reason for 
those advertisements, often inserted in city 



I AND CHARACl 

papers, offeri rooms with 

boarding, to "families without child] 

Not long ago, in a popular speech, CI.. 
Sumner said, three things were necessary to 
sustain the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 
all the departments of her government The 
first was backbone; the second was, back-boas : 
and the third was — backbone. In all fitness 
may I not say, three things arc required I 
tain a social system, justly American : the first 
of which is Common Sense ; the second of which 
is, Common Sense ; the third of which is — Com- 
mon Sense developed in fair judgment, prac- 
tical observation, and liberal respect for moral 
merit — living respect — present acknowledge- 
ment — respect which shall honor integrity to- 
day, not bow with sycophantic servility before 
cash, at home, at church, in legislative councils, 
and in business circles, forgetting character 
till orations are to be delivered, obituaries are 
to be written, or biographies are to be published. 

A venerable man, who is considered one of 
the founders of Ohio's excellent Common School 
System, was walking near a High-School edifice 
which is a dignified ornament to one of the 



A Lecture on High Life. 31 

principal streets of Cincinnati. A friend directed 
his attention to an appropriate niche in its im- 
posing front, and said, 

" Mr. Guilford, your statue will one clay he 
placed there. " 

The old man raised his "bent form, and look- 
ing up at the niche, while tears flowed down his 
furrowed cheeks, answered — 

" But if I could see it," 

There was a significant rebuke in that calm 
reply — a telling rebuke of that cheap public 
sentiment, which, out of selfishness, dare not do 
immediate justice to private worth, and public 
integrity. Nathan Guilford was a martyr, and 
his memory is fragrant. He is recognized as a 
Eepresentative of Character, and may stand in 
contrast with a Representative of Cash. 

During the financial storm which swept through 
Cincinnati, in the month of December, 1854, upon 
the door of a richly furnished banking-house, a 
small strip of paper was pinned. It attracted 
attention, and was widely talked about. Upon 
it in broken characters, traced evidently by a 
trembling female hand, these words were writ- 
ten: 



32 i[ AKD CllAK.V i 

M Tnis BriLDixr. w 

CRIES, AND WIDOWS* TEA! 

The words were true The Lank * 
and the widows and orphans were defrauded. 

The banker had maintained a splendid style. 
He had erected imposing- buildings; he 
rich suppers ; his family carriage was costly and 
beautiful ; in his house were rare jewels, and 
heavy plate; his children attended the most 
aristocratic schools and colleges. It could not 
be said that his character was above reproach, 
but his cash, or the cash he controlled, bought 
''caste" for him. In the "first circles of soci 
his card was welcome. Working men and \ 
were principally his depositors. He always pre- 
tended deep sympathy for them ; but his sym- 
pathy was selfish, mean. He wasted their money 
in high living. They called for the hard earn- 
ings they had entrusted to him. He locked the 
doors of his bank, and lied. When an exhibit 
of his affairs was made, nothing but persona] 
property could be secured for the benefit of 
depositors, and this, from a sale, at the best 
possible advantage, would yield but one-fourth 
the interest promised, and not our eaU of the 



A Lecture on High Life. 33 

principal. Lond, and deep, and bitter, and 
revengeful were the imprecations on the banker's 
head, when this fact was announced, but not one, 
perhaps, who had lost his hard-earned money, 
reflected that, in a considerable degree, he had 
himself to blame for the fraud over which he 
cursed. If any one had analyzed his previous 
consideration of the banker — how much he cov- 
eted his position, and how much deference he 
showed him, because of the splendor with which he 
was surrounded, the bitterness of his remorse, 
for having put confidence in so smooth a scoun- 
drel, would not have been at all lessened, when 
he learned that " one pew in the Second Pres- 
byterian Church, valued at $300," formed a 
part of the property from which depositors 
might expect two-and-a-half per cent. 

When was the mockery of hypocritical profes- 
sion more stinging ; when was fashionable piety 
— piety for a cash purpose, more bitterly exposed. 
What a sham ! what a wicked, contemptible 
sham ; but how closely allied to the larger por_ 
tion of the show we may see every day in any 
fashionable assemblage — at church, in the con- 
cert hall, or in the splendid parlor. The show 



84 B AHD Ch 

of piety was a pari of the Lank mi, just 

as much as the show of wealth, he indulged 
with hi . toward which they, 

every day, reverently nodded, contributing by 
their politeness, to the very waste which was 
exposed when their money was all spent, and 
the banker M absquatulated." 

Painful to every honest mind is P. B. Man- 
chester's rascality, but it is only a fair specimen 
of the pursuit of Cash at the expense of Char- 
acter ; a pursuit individuals may not only en- 
gage in without fear of fines or imprisonment, 
but which society encourages. I mean what I 
say. Contrast the spectacle of a scoundrel with 
money, and a scoundrel without money. T 
on the supposition that he has cash, he is feted 
and flattered — to-morrow, stubborn facts show 
that the supposition of Cash was fallacious, and 
he is a fugitive from the indignation of people 
whom he wronged; scorn and contempt will 
search for him to the uttermost ends of the 
earth. But, is respect; for character without Cash, 
higher or more general? I do not speak of 
business confidence. That is always seltish. I 
refer to that respect which the honest soul recog- 



A Lecture on High Life. 35 

nises, and by which, where no words are spoken, 
it is stimulated to better deeds, and nobler pur- 
poses. 

The Manchester fraud is only an aggravated 
example of what results from the spendthrift 
policy of making a show by living beyond one's 
income. It has followers in all circles of society, 
and from one to the other the folly is recipro- 
cated. Extravagance is relative ; the man of 
small income may be quite as extravagant in 
his sphere, as the man who controls millions. 

I doubt not that a majority of Manchester's 
depositors paid more deference to him than to 
their warm-hearted, generous souled, honest, 
fellow-workmen. It was the money, not the 
man, they regarded, and the money was not his. 
They earned it, and he spent it. Unless we 
prostrate in the dust such a standard of respec- 
tability, how long will it be before the last pro- 
digious swindle is consummated? We are 
ashamed of deference to wealth, and are proud 
of deference to worth, yet, though we are never 
loth to acknowledge the claims of Cash, do we 
not often hesitate to recognise real worth, which 
morally exalts a fellow-citizen. While we are 



36 aractek: 

thus selfish, we must not be surprised if sonfe 
one with 1< main- 

tain, speculates for money-power, at our cost. 

men prefer discounts from the 
drafts at Long time on the future. Mmej to- 
day, and tlic comfort and consideration it buys, 
are dearer to them than the hope of 
eulogies, and monuments, after death. - 
knowing that songs and eulogies will not be 
associated with their memories, take money as 
they live — a few, like Schuyler of New York, 
and Manchester of Cincinnati, win the monu- 
ments before death — but what are their inscrip- 
tions ? 

I need not answer. 

It is related of an eminent German artist, 
who won praises, but no money, by his pictures, 
that when a large number had accumulated in 
his studio, he draped his house in mourning, 
and advertised himself as dead. Immediately, 
there was an unprecedented demand for the pro- 
ductions of his pencil, the poorest commanding 
prices which the ablest never before reached. 
When all were sold, "the people, M well as the 
pictures," the "sharp" artist pn sen ted himself 



A Lecture on High Life. 37 

to the world a^ain, and enjoyed his good fortune. 
He was a " humbug/' you will say, and so he 
was, decidedly a " humbug," but dare you say 
that, in a business point of view, he was not a 
shrewd " financier." He only obtained money 
by false pretenses. Skill at deception, is better 
than capital now-a-days. It is the secret of suc- 
cess. A " renowned" American — a " Prince" in 
America — published his autobiography, to show 
his admiring subjects, how great an adept he 
has been in " false pretenses" — in cool, calcula- 
ting, unscrupulous rascality. Curiosity-lovers 
bought the book, and complacently said, " A 
sharp fellow that Barnum." Critics applauded 
the history of shameful " humbugs," and cried, 
" a healthful book — it teaches what energy and self- 
reliance may accomplish." Yes, energy in decep- 
tion — self-reliance in base impudence — that is 
the stock in trade of " humbug" — boasting with 
blazing effrontery, of a character whose 

" Self-complacent sleekness shows 
How thrift goes with the fawner — 
An unctious unconcern for all 
Which nice folks call dishonor." 



38 ii and Character: 

Bitterest scorn and surest itempt must rebuke 

its proud type or hones! labor, and legitimate 
enterprise will be sorely daraag 

What a charm lias success, in speculation, in 

deception, in fraud. A paltry wretch is he who 
fails even in a good cause — a merchant prince, 
a man of mark, is he who, out of ill-gotten gains, 
can build a palace, and plow his farm with an 
elephant. Suppose that the prince of humbugs 
had failed to make money with his lying dwarf, 
and his manufactured mermaid, or his baby- 
show. Allusion to him had been nauseating, 
even to point a moral. He lost his Character, 
to be sure, but by its loss, he won Cash, and he 
has been sought for as a " Popular " Lecturer, 
a Public Instructor. Literary societies sought 
to replenish their treasures by means of his 
want of shamefacedness — his " brass " — the 
capital with which he " set up " in business, and 
on which he lectured. 

Out upon such patronage of the despicable. 
If it have any influence, young men are taught 
by it, that to succeed is to be honored — that for- 
tune is the test of success, and that its secret is 



A Lecture on High Life. 39 

to "be sharp, rather than fair — to be mean, rather 
than honorable — to oppress, rather than relieve 
— to degrade, rather than elevate. In his 
touching speech on Christian charity, at the Tab- 
ernacle, in New York city, Kossuth, the noble- 
souled orator, said: 

" You all know the word ' idiot. 7 Almost every 
living language has adopted it, and all lan- 
guages attach to it the idea that an ' idiot ? is a 
poor, ignorant, useless wretch, nearly insane. 
Well, idiot is a word of Greek extraction, and 
meant, with the Greeks, a man who cared 
nothing for the public interest, but was all de- 
voted to the selfish pursuit of private profit, 
whatever might have been its results to the 
community. " 

In a Christian view of American society, the 
phrase idiot, with its original Greek significa- 
tion, may now be practically applied to not a 
few men who grow rich on their neighbors 7 op- 
pression, or out of their credulity. 

But this age of mechanism, this era of material- 
ism, is not wholly utilitarian. Advancement is 
not only being made in natural science, or in 
mechanical usefulness. Philosophy, chemistry, 



!<» 

geology, and astroiiomv ai oming 

more properly, and more generally under 
but manifestations of benevolence and true 
charity, those manifestations which are the 
I evidence of a nation's just exaltation, 
become more positive and more numerous. 
Schools for the ignorant, hospitals for the blind, 
asylums for the insane, and for the deaf and the 
dumb, friendly associations for the relief of the 
stranger, societies for the benefit of the widow 
and the orphan, and unions for the help of the 
unemployed, are the lights of the age, and 
their gradual growth and elevation are the 
best evidences of the constant increase of the 
true spirit of humanity and brotherhood. The 
development of that spirit must, as a natural 
sequence, be followed by such declarations of 
public will as are competent to restrain specu- 
lation, to check peculation, and prevent foolish 
extravagance. It is a spirit of Christian 
elation, through which, in time, just 
humanity will be popularly arrived at, by which 
orders of society will be pointed out, which, if 
followed, will lead mankind nearer harmony, 
und farther from vice and This spirit 



A Lecture on High Life. 41 

is the outgrowth of movements in which not 
only liberal, intelligent men are interested, but 
in which the generous hearts of far-seeing 
women beat. 

I have spoken of home education. I wish 
now to touch the fountain of home influence. 
Mothers hold the seals. 

It is the pride of civilization that its perfec- 
tion is marked by the nobility of woman's posi- 
tion, and the pervading power of her affectionate 
impulses. Day after day, as society yields to 
her more implicitly that sway which, as the 
mistress of the Domain of Love, is her right, 
all reforms that are developments of generous 
heart-sentiment, will stand higher and firmer : 
but she must be the companion, the helpmate 
of man, and not a drudge, a doll, a plaything, 
nor a blind idol. She must understand her 
own responsibilities and destiny, she must know 
her duties, her influence. She must not only 
be handsome, but useful, a self-provider, a self- 
governor, a self-protector, appreciating, prac- 
tically, with her opulent affections, that indus- 
try and knowledge are virtues, that idleness and 
ignorance are disgraceful ; and this appreciation 



aracter: 

Dot from hard i 
the home of the poor man, but from nob; 
timent, in the homes of the wealthy. It must 
be popular in " first eiiv]. 

Gay folly embarrassed men, rendered them 
bankrupt, and drove them to thi _ table, 

before America was discovered : but American 
pioneers were severe in their t. veil as 

in their habits and laws. In the early history 
of our country, severity of style was a nee 
Extreme plainness was required by narrow 
opportunities and contracted means. We grew 
rich, and we grew proud. Prom one extreme we 
rushed to another,ineonsidei\ately, extravagantly. 

Aunt Peggy and Cousin Tabitha, of 
were sensible, though scant, maidens, or plain 
and frugal housewives; but Aunt Sallie and 
Cousin Minnie, of 1855, (girls are never christ- 
ened Prudence or Recompense, Patience or Hu- 
mility, now-a-days,) are gay and accomplished, 
belles, the glass of fashion, mistresses, per- 
chance, of establishments at which §20,000 
entertainments are given. They do not toil, 
neither do they spin, yet Cleopatra, in all her 
glory was not arrayed like one of them. 



A Lecture on High Life. 43 

The ladies of America — hard working Amer- 
ica — set their hearts upon a wardrobe according 
to its cost. Cheapness and durability are des- 
pised as vulgar. It is considered noble to show 
a lofty disregard of pecuniary considerations, 
while husband or Pa is scheming — it may be 
cheating — on Wall street, or Third street, or 
some other financial avenue. 

It is said that the follies of the rich give em- 
ployment to the poor, and the saying is true, 
but generally it is unremunerative employment. 
The lady of a splendid establishment, with self- 
satisfied assurance, tells her husband-financier 
that he can afford to make her a present of a 
fifty dollar shawl, because she has succeeded, by 
grievous oppression, in getting her sewing done 
very cheap. The poor girl who did that sewing 
turned her head aside many a time for fear a 
tear might fall upon and soil her work, while 
she struggled resolutely to close the fountain of 
her grief, because the mist which gathered in 
her eyes blinded her sight, and for a moment 
prevented the swift exercise of her needle. 

Another fine lady wishes a new carriage, and 
her lord, who is a little fearful of the expense, 



44 i» Character: 

demurs, but the lady, quick a1 • 
"There u fche block of houses on Fourth 

The tenants are well 

on Eighth street. Put up the rent in one place 
fifty dollars each, and in the other twenty- live 
dollars, and we can easily afford a now <-a: 
The tenants wont move, and you have nearly 
money enough to pay the differen. 
our old hack and a carriage just in the style/' 
Up go the rents, and the lady goes a shopping 
in the carriage her heart pon. 

But we must not impose all the responsibility 
upon the vanity and vexation of woman. I 
recollect having read not long ago, a boast from 
a New York fop, who inherited a fortune which 
was won in doubtful speculations, that his g 
cost him $500 a year. In horses, gle 
and liquors, and in following the fashions which 
the tailor makes, not for his comfort, bat for his 
money, he will soon spend the fortune that fell 
to him, and add another to the list of men, of 
whom, when they are gone, we can only say 
they inherited more money than wit or judg- 
ment. They had cards to the "best society.'' 



A Lecture on High Life. 45 

Let that be their epitaph. The goal of their 
ambition was won. Their history is written. 

I have seen a statement in a New York paper, 
that it had been ascertained that two members 
of a mercantile firm had drawn for household 
and personal expenses, during one year, the sum 
of $1 37,000. This large sum was not spent in 
charity — it was not devoted to benevolent pur- 
poses — it was not given to promote any whole- 
some reform ; it was spent " to keep in the 
fashion ;" aye, fashion, vain display, vulgar 
show, or " genteel" dissipation — feeding a social 
cancer whose spreading poison infects every cir- 
cle of society, paralyzes the arm of industry, 
and embitters the home life of the high and the 
low, the rude and the cultivated. 

Liberality toward American labor does not 
widely run into extravagance, but for imported 
silks, and satins, and broadcloths, cigars, wines, 
and jewelry — for ribbons, and furs, and furbe- 
lows, and " knicknackeries," we are as lavish as 
princes and princesses ; and thus it corner to 
pass, that while American labor is oppressed — 
while productive energy is checked, and working 



46 B ANH Cjiaraci 

men and working women beg for bread, the 
importers and retailers of the showy products of 
cheap European toil — the hard result of the 

bitter slavery of penury — can count their hand- 
some profits and speculate on distr- 

Weak indeed is that man who, knowing that 
his style of living will lead to bankruptcy, 
" keeps up appearances " till the sheriff demands 
the keys of his safe ; but while the prudent and 
thoughtful condemn such a man, they must not 
forget his interesting family. Perhaps he mar- 
ried a fashionable young lady : for her husband's 
house she left her father's, with a flattering 
promise of luxurious ease ; she had fond antici- 
pations of "cutting a dash in the world." 

" For myself, I don't care," soliloquises the 
bankrupt, " but my wife — what shall I do for 
her?" 

Poor fellow ! he is not half so culpable as his 
father-in-law and his mother-in-law. Had his 
wife been properly educated, he could Inn 
tided to her the condition of his affairs. She 
would have been advised of threatened misfor- 
tune. Perhaps their united efl I have 
waived protest; at least, her counsel, her sym- 



A Lecture on High Life. 47 

pathy, her economy, might have materially 
mitigated the severity of the failure. 

Fashionable mothers do not realize that social 
life is twofold — actual and ideal. That is a 
lesson every American mother is required to 
teach by precept and example. Penury may 
compel bitter and too exclusive pursuit of the 
actual, but opulence can never excuse its abne- 
gation. The social cancer now eating toward 
the heart of our national prosperity, will not be 
cured by Conventions which resolve upon the 
" right " of women to be lawyers and legisla- 
tors ; but the poisoned currents which support 
its corrupting growth may be checked and 
sweetened by the common sense and watchful- 
ness of mothers who have more pride in good 
character for their children, than in dainty dress, 
and patronizing airs, and insipid small-talk — 
who prefer admiration in the home circle to 
envy in the ball-room — who aspire to matronly 
rather than political influence. 

Not a few fair-seeming and very respectable 
people have bitter prejudices against frock-coats 
and broadcloth pantaloons — against short skirts 
and Turkish trowsers for ladies' wear; some 



48 1'KK: 

very sensible men are firmly of the opinion that 
women should not covet ballots on election-day; 
ami a few y.tv liberal people honestly entertain 

the conviction that active or superin tending em- 
ployment in a culinary department of useful- 
ness, is eminently better suited to womanly 
capacity than the trials and responsibilii 
the rostrum ; but the most crusty hunker in any 
community — the most nerv in any town 

or city, however much he may prefer fossils 
from the past to the fruits and flowers of the 
present, will cheerfully concede that, surrounded 
by her children, every mother has an inalien- 
able right to this declaration : — " It is my duty 
and my privilege, and shall be my pleasure, to 
direct the first unfoldings of these dear souls." 
By the proper exercise of that duty and that 
privilege, mothers may form the sentiment of 
society — mold the destiny of a nation. The 
applause which the mother's influence may 00OH 
mand, is the broadest, highest, and holiest on 
earth. To the mothers who brought up their 
sons and daughters with just restraint and 
wholesome counsel, owe we the material pro- 
gress which renders our country renowned : and 



A Lecture on High Life. 49 

to those who neglected the restraint and the 
counsel, may we not in a great measure, a very 
great measure, owe the tightness and oppres- 
sion which undermine business, weaken confi- 
dence, and check trade and manufactures. 

"When the architect is honored, when the 
engineer is commended, when the orator is 
applauded, when the preacher moves his hearers 
to repentance and reform, when the poet wins 
laurel wreaths, when the artist gives delight 
to gazing multitudes, when the statesman honors 
his name and his native land — in short, when 
any great or good deed is done, it hears to some 
mother a compliment. In her humhle cottage 
on the banks of an Ohio river the mother may 
hold a charm which directs the sailor who does 
duty in a Japan Expedition — from dissipation 
and crime this charm may now he keeping some 
gold-seeker in a California ravine — it may cheer 
the explorer of burning wastes, or encourage 
the wanderer amid fields of ice. It is a solace 
at home and an incentive abroad. Then, if 
without a mother's hold upon the heart — through 
" strong up welling prayers of faith " — through 
warnings love-inspired — through councils affec- 
4 



• ClIAilACTEIl : 

• -animated — a bod or danghi the 

l.Ts vanities and follies, and 

it, deceptions, what can be their chances for 
honor and useful to 

at foppery and Wastefulness, at swindling and 
bankruptcy V — that where honest men and 
virtuous women should he foun. « f 

senseless fashion, bankrupts, swindlers, and con- 
victs will stand ? 

A few years ago the cry of retrenchment and j 
reform rang through the country, as polit' 
policy. It is needed now, as a social policy, as | 
well as for social principle. But retrenchment! 
will not redeem what is lost. Its 1 ^nsl 

to our observation the striking fact, that it is] 
the pestiferous which is contagious, whether] 
against medicine or morals, in nature or infl 
society. The young, whose opinions and con™ 
notions are being moulded, must have their 
characters vaccinated from the bitter experience 
of the pecuniary crisis just passed, if they would 
be protected, in the meridian of manhood and 
womanhood, from such a monetary epidemic 
as was deplored in view of " settlement* " for 



A Lecture on High Liee. 51 

The sentiment, that society should take care 
of men, is more pernicious than that the world 
owes every man a living. The world owes no 
man but what he earns by labor or by virtue, 
and by that labor, and that virtue, he must 
assist to take care of society. Observe a 
company of soldiers, well-drilled. In time with 
the piercing fife, and sounding drum, each step, 
by each soldier, is taken. Parents are the drill- 
sergeants of social companies. On the battle- 
field, victory depends greatly upon the perfection 
of tactics taught in the hour of peace. So in 
the battle of life, success results mainly from 
the lessons given by home's Orderly-sergeants. 
Extraordinary need of correct social tactics in- 
creases. In many phases which the word " hard " 
does not express, our " times " differ from those 
in which our forefathers flourished. 

A poet and journalist,* who has seen the 
foppery of fashionable life, and who can pic- 
turesquely moralize on what he knows the folly 
of, has described one of the phases which bear 
on our social life, more happily than I can. He 
wrote : 

N. P. Willis. 



52 Cash and Character: 

" The glories that used to b t and 

lb) the 
cheapest, or most accessible and common What 

magnificence of full-length mirrors, before which 
publicly to spend one's shilling ! what luxury 
for the public eating of one's meal ! What 
architecture in which to listen publicly to music ! 
What sumptuousness in which to steam with the 
public! What swiftness of railway — royalty of 
hotel accommodation — spaciousness and splash- 
invite-ing-ness of public promenade. The jew- 
eller's shops leave the beggar ignorant of nothing 
that is made of gold, silver, or jewels. The 
picture-shops deluge him with the arts — apparel 
and furniture array all their extravagances and 
novelties for street temptation and admiration. 

Things are most seen that used to be least seen 

cheapest that used to be costliest — commonest, 
and most thrust upon you, that used to be 
rarest and most walled in from casual or vulgar 
knowledge. With health enough to go abroad, 
and be public, a man is a sybarite, a luxuriast, 
an aristocrat, cheaper and easier than anything 
else. Home and privacy are the only things 
difficult and expensive. How is it working, this 



A Lecture on High Life. 53 

splendor for the many ? Are homes made dull, 
unattractive, hy being so dazzlingly outshone, or 
is there a cure-surfeit, and are display and 
extravagance likely to be avoided as steam- 
boat-y and hotel-ish, shop-y and street-walker- 
ish ? Is life in public to be the prevailing 
American fashion, leaving England to be the 
land of happiness in homes, or will it not touch 
that question, (for the middle classes) and will 
the commonising of magnificence and show serve 
only to defeat the ostentation of wealth, and 
degrade the aristocracy of display ? " 

These are pregnant questions. They touch 
the heart of the view that ought to be taken of 
money and morals. 

Americans have sacred reason to be proud of 
American homes, and from the period when they 
have not, will date the beginning of America's 
positive decline ; but, as I have more than once 
intimated, the homes which are now the safe- 
guards of privelege and prosperity, do not belong 
to those who possess the greatest pecuniary 
advantage, or wield the widest individual influ- 
ence. If the commonness of magnificence was 
for true art, in keeping with moral elevation 



54 Cash and Character: 

and social comfort, homes would not be rcn 
unattractive by it ; but. al;. . anity, 

instead of ennobling art It h meretiio 
it belongs to the selfish reign of money : it is 
not the representative of the quiet and good, 
but of the " fast " and foolish ; it does not accord 
with uprightness in society, and just ire in busi- 
ness, but with speculation on credit — with grand 
entertainments on borrowed money. On homes 
it has reflex influence. The show that is in the 
highway is in the home, and the misfortune is, 
not only in the home of the speculator, but in 
the home of the workingman is it often refle 
faintly, perhaps — perhaps ridiculously. It would 
not be in the highway were it not in the home, 
and to be in the home, there must be love of it 
in the heart — native or acquired. 

The standard of our style is too high in Cash, 
and too low in Character. From the ringlet ted, 
fancifully-dressed little fop. Of coqmette, molded 
at three years of age, by its fashionable mother, 
into an impersonation of personal pride, and 
frivolous OOnoeit, to the bride, whoso t'ace is 
brighter from the flitter of jewels, than from 
the glow of health, or the luster of modes' 



A Lecture on High Life. 55 

and the groom, who takes her to a house for 
the furnishing of which he is in debt, in order 
that its " style " may be equal to that of his 
neighbor or friend — from the stripling, who 
knows " cigars," and " wines," and " cards," 
and " nags," to the middle aged man, who, in 
doubt and vexation, rushes along some financial 
avenue, seeking accommodations which are to 
" stave off " bankruptcy, threatened by the 
""Big figure" that describes the position of his 
family in " first circles," — from the delicate 
Miss, who teases Pa for parties and watering- 
places, to the woman who neglects home and 
children, that personal vanity, and cheap flat- 
tery, and lip-compliments, and silly envy, may 
be interchanged — around, about, through all, 
there is too much for cost, and too little for 
worth — too much for what is perishable, too 
little for what is enduring ; for what comes to us 
from the past, and goes from us to the future. 
That wealth which neither moth nor rust can 
corrupt, lies not in this world's envy, nor in its 
vanity, but in its moral and social affections. 
Because a man is selfish, he may rejoice in some 
treachery, but from the bottom of his heart he 



56 Cash and Character: 

will despise the traitor, precisely because of the 
selfishness which rendered the treachery desira- 
ble. Apply that idea to social vanity. We 
may covet the splendor in which some indi- 
vidual or family displays pride, but at the same 
time, our trustworthy estimate of that family, 
or individual, is correspondingly lowered. What, 
then, is the real value of the " inexplicable 
dumb-show," which the rich indulge with pride, 
and the poor envy with hate. 

In answer I may repeat a proposition advanced 
in the opening of this Lecture : 

The deference money wins, is toward what the 
man has, not toward what the man is. The 
deference Character wins is positive, without 
change or shadow of turning — it belongs to the 
man as definitely as his name, for good, or for 
evil. 

Hard work and moral responsibility underlie 
all we have as a people, that is worth having, 
and yet the signs of the times warn the parent, 
the teacher, and the student to exercise exceed- 
ing care that, while intelligence widens, labor 
be not depreciated. I mean work, not • 
unrest for miserly aggrandizement, but reason- 



A Lecture on High Life. 57 

able labor for beneficial ends. Why should we 
not insist upon the association of even the more 
unpleasant tasks of life with dignity and pro- 
priety ? As a working people, widening intel- 
ligence requires that we do not dissever the 
idea of the highest respectability from the cheap- 
est toil, though, at the same time, we crown 
with laurels him whose educated labor produces 
a machine which renders the cheap toil, in a 
particular line, needless. 

Appreciation for art and literature becomes 
more and more refined, printing presses multi- 
ply books and newspapers, and lithographs and 
photographs cheapen art for all the people, yet 
Greece and Eome, in ancient days," "gave us our 
models. Our standard of oratory was set up in 
Athens, and that for poetry was erected in the 
seven cities that 

" Claimed the birth, of Homer dead, 

Through -which in life he begged his bread." 

Imitative excellence is not among the proud- 
est to which nations may aspire. Inventive 
genius, which diffuses the learning of the past, 
facilitates the progress of the present, and 



58 Cash and Character: 

demands the gratitude of the future, is a char- 
acteristic which even a nation with universal 
common schools may consider a crowning glory. 

When Athens and Pwome produced what are 
now recognized standards of Art and Litera- 
ture, the people outside of their city walls were 
barbarians — and they became not co-workers for 
general good, but slaves of each other, for 
personal aggrandizement. Inventive genius 
had not yet simplified instruction, nor had in- 
genious mechanism diffused intelligence, or 
aided and sweetened toil. To the nineteenth 
century was left the honor and benefit of uni- 
versal appropriation of what was good or great 
in the results of Eoman, or Grecian, or Egyptian, 
or Arabian intellectual endeavor, but to this 
century were not denied new elements of power, 
nor incentives to original investigation for new 
uses of ancient models. 

The problem of human destiny involves ques- 
tions which affect the whole man, and the whole 
people, now and forever, and upon each genera- 
tion is imposed the solemn duty of deserving 
the legacies of the past, by leaving new and 
richer ones to the future. 



A Lecture on High Life. 59 

With widening intelligence and enlarging 
opportunity, that duty grows weightier and 
grander. The responsibility of its just exer- 
cise, for the present generation, lies chiefly upon 
our homes, hut lies heavily, also, upon our 
schools, which sooner or later must directly 
impress every character in the nation. 

The construction of American society neces- 
sarily requires occupation, attention to some 
employment or some dissipation on the part of 
all classes. The Yankee who is unemployed, 
will whittle the chair on which he sits, or the 
post against which he leans, when no other mis- 
chief tempts him, for 

" Satan finds some mischief still 
For idle hands to do." 

We can have no gentry, in the European sig- 
nification of that phrase. Hereditary fortunes 
can not accumulate through ten generations. 
Nobility does not belong to families, but to indi- 
viduals. Whatever approach is made toward 
European aristocracy must, from an American 
point of view, render the imitator contemptible. 
Such egotistic imitations as we have, weaken 



60 Cash and Character: 

the bonds of our social union, produce financial 
crises, and damage the general interests of the 
country. 

Sensible men and women must teach the 
wholesome doctrine that the nobility of labor is 
as broad as its necessity, and that he who, re- 
moved from its necessity by ancestral fortune, 
is a pensioner upon the industry of his fore- 
fathers, can be neither as dignified nor as re- 
spectable as he who, in whatever humble sphere, 
with head and hands honestly provides for him- 
self. 

The common school teacher who respects him- 
self, and loves his profession, has superior reason 
for making special effort to penetrate every pu- 
pil with that sentiment of individual democracy. 

The abstract values of Cash and Character, 
the commercial convenience of money, the hero- 
ism of morals, the beauty of holiness, the 
blessings for time and eternity of justice, are 
recognized, if not executed. I need not argue, 
that in business and in society, as well as in 
the church, money should be an instrument, not 
a power. Hoping he expounds living gospel, 



A Lecture on High Life. 61 

not dead doctrine, I would not intrude upon the 
preacher's peculiar province. 

A hint to the repining poor man, and I dis- 
miss the subject. 

Go, sir, with the covetousness which gives you 
discontent, into the mansion toward which your 
eyes are enviously turned. You see that it is 
grand, but scan its inner-life, and you will find 
that it is gloomy. There is no heart-felt hap- 
piness — there is no fireside, strictly speaking — 
there are rich dinners and gay company, and 
hollow compliments, but the mother is not 
in earnest sympathy with her daughters, and 
the sons esteem him whom the law regards as 
their father, but whom they call " Governor ," 
not according to wealth of affection toward him, 
but according to their pocket allowance. Be- 
tween the mistress of the mansion and him who 
should be its master, there is no business, and 
very little home confidence ; and when he has 
rendered up his last account on earth, his sons, 
who are not business men, who are only gentle- 
men, who are, and always have been above 
counting-house or shop drudgery, squander what 



62 Cash and Character: 

their father had accumulated, and his grand 
mansion is maintained, perhaps, by one who had 
been his humblest clerk or apprentice. 

Your son may be an apprentice or a clerk. 
Be assured that the sons of working men must 
occupy the posts of honor and of wealth to 
which the idly, vainly reared fall heir, and 
reflect that the means of correcting the evils 
which render city or country society vain, frivo- 
lous, and oppressive, lie within reach of the self- 
denying, hard-working, non-party-giving, non- 
speculating, non-failing. Let your household 
form a home of mutual confidence and practical 
counsel. Be not niggard or selfish, when oppor- 
tunities of elevation offer your children. Seek 
such opportunities, and let the lesson of your 
life be for the practical and the thoughtful, that 
your sons and daughters may not covet what is 
vain and false, but may strive for success in 
honorable walks of life, employing their rewards 
to enlarge the sphere of the ennobling and the 
useful. 



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